


The History of The United States (By A Partial, Prejudiced, and Ignorant Historian)

by dreampunks (orphan_account), morelikelosername



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - Historical, American History, Multi, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-09-25 10:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20375578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/dreampunks, https://archiveofourown.org/users/morelikelosername/pseuds/morelikelosername
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley get stuck in America for five hundred years. They make the best of it.





	1. The Fountain of Youth

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a riff on Jane Austen's "The History of England By a Partial Prejudiced and Ignorant Historian"

For a demon, Crowley wasn't particularly a fan of heat. Well, that wasn't necessarily true -- he liked a warm sunny day as well as the next person. This general dislike also had nothing to do with his demonic nature, or the nature of Hell in general. Hell, as a matter of fact, was neither as frozen over nor as sulfurously smoldering as various philosophers and poets have expected. It was actually quite like the temperature of a cup of tea you had left out for about an hour and then drank without thinking. Unpleasant, but not particularly extreme in either direction.

"You know," said Aziraphale, "you don't _ have _ to wear all that black."  
  
"Yes I Do," Crowley insisted, somewhat miserably. He had bought in Spain a very fancy doublet jacket with extremely intricate snake-themed brocade that he had already torn seven separate times over the course of their two month journey -- two of those tears had been in full view of non-occult crewmembers, and Crowley was thus forced to leave them be.

Aziraphale, who was dressed much more sensibly in light, breathable, quilted textile, was not particularly sympathetic.

"Why did you even come on this journey in the first place? Your lot have been having quite a time in Toledo, last I heard." He had not heard much particularly, as while he was certainly inclined towards certain pursuits deemed "dull", lengthy discourses on taxation were not one of them.

"Oh, well, facilitating revolution isn't _ reeeeally _ in my job description." That may or may not have been a lie. Crowley hadn't actually known what his job description was since the mid-ninth century. "Besides, this seems fun! Way more interesting than whatever that king… what's his name, Carl?"

"I know you know he's Charles V."

"Yes, whatever, _ Charles_. Anyways, all those arguments about _ representation in government _ or whatever fancy name they had for that tax system they like--"

"Encabezamiento." 

"-- Yes, that one, thank you. Anyways, all that, it's all very boring, isn't it? Nearly as bad as all that drudgery in the fourteenth century."

"And two months at sea wasn't _ drudging?"_

"Well, actually, it's been quite fun. You see, I've been slowly watering down all the wine and I've convinced the first mate that the quartermaster has been skimming off the top, and the quartermaster that it's the cook and the galley crew, and, you know, so on so forth. They're all antsy and painfully sober on top of it, but nobody can quite catch anybody else in the act. Also, a few of them still don't know about the whole 'basically just water' thing, and are pretending to get drunk anyway." 

"And what do you do with the wine?" Aziraphale asked, starting to feel like he should be getting a headache if it weren't for the fact that he was an angel. Interestingly enough, angels _could _get indigestion, if not migraines, which didn't actually happen to Aziraphale as often as you would imagine. 

"Oh, I just tossed it overboard. Best to dispose of the evidence, you know." 

"So you've been watering down the wine that we're drinking too, and just tossing the good stuff?" He said this in that way of his, with a sort of furrow in his brow that Crowley despised most because of how unintentionally disappointed in him Aziraphale looked.

"Well, we're almost at land now anyways. If there's one thing I expect to be the same halfway across the world, it's that they'll have _ some _ way of getting drunk."

* * *

They did, in fact, have a way of getting drunk. It was made of corn, and spiced quite strongly, and got both an angel and a demon roaring drunk very fast. It also made for great entertainment for Yahíma, the cacique's daughter, who, like many young children, very much enjoyed watching grown men act like idiots. 

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," Crowley spluttered, completely incomprehensibly. "They're tying a string to the fish?"

"Yes," Yahíma said. The_ 'duh' _was implied in her tone. 

"And then" -- Crowley flailed around a little before draping an arm over a wide-eyed and silent Aziraphale's shoulders -- "And then you just throw it back in the ocean."

"Yes," said Casiguaya, Yahíma's mother. Casiguaya, like many mothers, didn't really enjoy grown men talking to her young daughter unsupervised. "The fish already knows how to find the other fish better than a man ever could, so why not let it do all the work?"

"That is true," Crowley muttered. "Men are stupid. Fish, though. Fish are pretty smart. That's why they got made a whole day earlier." 

"Well, once Yaureibo comes back with some of the oysters that the boys have been picking, we can pick some fish out of the weirs and cook them alongside."

"Oh!" Aziraphale spoke up for the first time in a while. "Oysters! We love those!"

"Well," said Crowley, who had mentioned a fondness for oysters once about forty centuries ago that Aziraphale had then taken and run with, "we indulge when we have the opportunity."

"Wait!" Aziraphale said, gesturing so wildly that he wobbled a little precariously. "Yahíma and Yaureibo! Oh, I get it!"

Yahíma, a put-upon sister who didn't appreciate her place in the grand tradition of siblings with matched-set names, just scowled loudly. Crowley suppressed a sympathetic sigh. 

Casiguaya ignored her daughter with practiced ease, pointedly gazing towards the forest she had gestured towards before. "If he is not too busy playing with his friends, he should be back now." 

"He's always hanging out with Ameyro," Yahíma grumbled.

"Yes," Casiguaya said, knowingly. "They're close."

Just as she said that the four beings of assorted species spotted several figures returning from the forest. Crowley, who couldn't really see much in his dark glasses, resigned himself to waiting a little longer before he knew if lunch was on. While angels and demons didn't get hungry, per se, they certainly felt the weight of social expectation towards hunger, and that was nearly as bad. 

As the figures approached, though, he couldn’t help but notice the shift in Casiguaya’s demeanor, and the way Yahíma moved to stand behind her mother’s skirts. He put the thought of lunch out of his mind and subtly peered over the rims of his glasses.

"Oh," he said, "It's That Guy." 

“You know this stranger?” Casiguaya frowned. 

"Yeah, he gave us a ride.” 

Aziraphale moved to elaborate, but before he could say anything, Juan Ponce de Leon -- or as Crowley preferred to think of him, Ponz -- clanked noisily to a stop. "Oh no," Aziraphale said. "He isn't going to start shouting, is he?"

He was.

“I DEMAND TO SEE THE KING OF THIS BEACH," he said, his hands on either side of his face to project even more blaringly across what had been formerly a peaceful scene.

"What kind of ride?" Casiguaya asked.

"A long one," Crowley said. "He's a bit… much."

"WHERE IS YOUR TRANSLATOR," he yelled. Then clarified, "THAT IS THE PERSON WHO UNDERSTANDS WHAT I AM SAYING BUT ALSO KNOWS WHAT YOU ARE SAYING."

"Are all of you people like that?" asked Yahíma.

“No,” said Aziraphale, at the exact moment that Crowley also said, “Yes.”

"Well, if his lot had their way, it would be yes," Aziraphale qualified.

Crowley snorted. "My lot _has _had our way. Also, Ponce is a bit of a, well," he giggled, "ponce."

Before they devolved into another petty debate, with the same level of interest on both sides as people from different cities who both avidly Do Not Care about sports discussing their hometown's teams going head to head, Casiguaya interrupted them.

"What is Yaureibo doing with that man?" She asked, finally rousing herself enough to walk very stridently towards Ponz. 

Yaureibo was hanging back, somewhat sheepishly, behind the new arrival. He and Ameyro carried between them a net that held a suspiciously small quantity of oysters. If Crowley were feeling charitable, he would have said that it was because good ol’ Ponz had interrupted them before they were quite through. He had eyes, though.

Ponz saw Casiguaya advancing very purposefully towards him, and Crowley could almost see the paralysis from indecision setting in. He wasn't sure why this woman, who was a fair few inches taller than him, was bearing down on him, but he also clearly assumed that she might be useful to him in some way. He smiled broadly and, in a way he obviously thought was charming, began his gentlemanly introductions.

"Madam," he said, much less loudly now. He did not get much further, as Casiguaya marched straight past him, descending on her son with an impressive amount of motherly wrath.

She grabbed Yaureibo by the ear and tugged him a few feet off. Crowley wondered if that was why Yaureibo's ears stuck out so much.

“Who is this man,” she asked sternly, gesturing towards the almost-empty net, “and what am I supposed to do with him when this handful of oysters is all you bring me? You want people to think we're bad hosts?" 

"Bibi, that hurts," Yaureibo whined. 

Yahíma, who had wandered over along with Aziraphale and Crowley, possibly because young children and ancient occult creatures are both attracted to drama, piped up. "What are you even doing with Ameyro when you guys are su_pposed _ to be picking oysters? Do you still do breath-holding competitions?"

"Yeah," said Yaureibo, voice tight with both pain and embarrassment. "Something like that."

“Yeah, that’s exactly it,” cut in Ameyro. “We were--uh--holding our breath in the water when this guy shows up, and he starts taking our oysters! And then Yaureibo says, _ hey, you, that’s our oysters, _and he ran out of the water to stop him! He was very brave.”

"Ameyro," Yaureibo said, slowly closing his eyes in defeat. "Please shut up."

Casiguaya had been listening to all of this with an ever-climbing eyebrow and her son's ear pinched between two fingers before she finally turned to Ameyro. 

"You are a bad liar, so you are going to answer all my questions." Ameyro took the insult with a little _ "yeah, kinda" _ shrug. "Who is that man, and what are you doing with him?"

"He's Juan! He's another of those pink people and he wants to sail to the land with all the gold, where the Apalachee live! He's looking for guides and people to help navigate, though." 

"Oh," said Casiguaya, dangerously. "Is he?" 

Yahíma tugged at her mother's skirt. "Bibi, I've never been to where the Apalachee live. Can we go?"

“I’ve never been there, either,” said Yaureibo cautiously.

"Oh, us neither," Aziraphale said, which was unappreciated by most people in the conversation. Crowley gave him a Look.

Casiguaya sighed. She knew her children well enough to know how this was going to go, and, well, it got the loud man off her island for the time being.

* * *

After a very long and frustrating conversation, in which Casiguaya repeatedly attempted to impress upon Ponce de Leon that she was the sole ruler, and he repeatedly asked to speak to her husband (despite the fact that she told him she had four and he'd need to get a little more specific), they finally negotiated an expedition off the island. Casiguaya privately thought she got the better end of the deal, as the pink man was easily bought off with useless metals and in return, she got someone to babysit her children for a week so she could finally relax and enjoy her four husbands.

The deal was that Ameyro would take care of Yahíma, Yaureibo would take care of Ameyro, and (unofficially) Crowley and Aziraphale would keep an eye on them all and make sure all of Casiguaya’s children were returned no worse for the wear. This final part of the deal was negotiated through a strongly raised eyebrow on Casiguaya’s part, and in response, a reassuring wink from Aziraphale that in fact came across more as a panicked twitch of the eyelid. 

They had, of course, agreed to this plan before actually spending long amounts of time in enclosed spaces with Casiguaya's children. She did not get to where she was without being a shrewd negotiator. 

Crowley was currently sunning himself on the deck of the ship, blithely ignoring the very concerning noises issuing from belowdecks. He lay artfully sprawled on a deck chair (which was really a milk crate with aspirations). After a scuffle, a muffled scream, and a very loud thump, Aziraphale emerged, adjusting his collar. 

“How’re you managing down there, angel?”

“Yahíma has a good head on her shoulders and seems like a good and mature young woman,” he offered, sitting on the chair across, “though Yaureibo is… a bit more of a tossup. Young men often lose their heads in love; perhaps the trick will be to get him on his own.”

“Hmm,” Crowley grunted.

Yahíma suddenly popped her head up over the side of the boat. "Are you guys talking about us?"

"What are you-- How did you-- Get down from there at once, young lady!" Aziraphale spluttered. 

"We were," Crowley answered, raising his voice over Aziraphale's.

Yahíma stuck her tongue out at him. "I don't know why you're talking about Yaureibo and Ameyro, they're so boring! All they do is stare at each other and giggle sometimes." She swung one leg over the rail and then tumbled ungracefully to the deck before jumping back to her feet and straightening up.

Behind them, Ameyro and Yaureibo stumbled in, looking flustered.

"There you are!" Yaureibo said, bending down and catching his breath. 

"Oh," Yahíma said unconcernedly, "Are you guys done sitting around?"

“No,” said Ameyro. Yaureibo elbowed him. "Are you going to sit down?"

"No."

"An impasse!" Crowley said, enjoying this very much. 

Yaureibo, channeling older siblings everywhere, pointed a finger at his younger sister and said: "I'll sit on you." 

"Have to catch me first!"

"None of that," Aziraphale cut in nervously. He made an aborted movement towards Yahíma, possibly to pick her up, before thinking better of it.

"Oh, the funny man is coming over!" Yahíma said. "I'll sit for that." 

Crowley turned his head to see Ponz walking towards them, bearing a bottle of wine in each fist. 

"CROWLÉ! I am having trouble!" 

"Oh boy," he said, sitting up. Yahíma had the look of someone about to see a highly anticipated blockbuster sequel to a movie she really loved-- or she would have if movies had been invented yet-- and even Yaureibo and Ameyro seemed interested.

“I have all this wine and no one to drink it with,” he sniffed. He set the bottles down on the deck next to Crowley’s chair and crossed his arms, leaning against the railing with his nose in the air. 

"Oh, we had quite a lot already," Aziraphale said. He looked worriedly at Yahíma who was staring at the bottle with the consideration of a child weighing out what they could get away with. 

"So tell me, Crowlé, I have known you for what, fifteen, twenty years? And you have not looked any different since we met! What is your secret," he said, patting Crowley's face, "how do you keep your skin so nice!"

Crowley, who had read a skincare tip in the older version of Cosmo magazine -- a written-down account, delivered yearly by carrier pigeon, of all the word-of-mouth of the French court -- frantically tried to recall all the anti-aging skincare advice he'd ever been given.

"I drink a lot of water."

"Water?"

"Oh yeah, you know, very good for wrinkles. Staying hydrated, very good for you. Spectacular, even."

Yahíma was listening to all of this very careful demeanor. She had also been suspiciously quiet. Finally, with a glance at Yaureibo, she spoke up. 

"You know, in the place where the Apalachee live, they have a very special fountain. Those who drink can retain their youth forever," she said, reaching and uncorking a bottle.

Ponz, who had not quite caught on to the implications, spluttered and reached over. "Oh no, no, no, you can't have that! Alcohol is for the… mature."

"Well, that's okay," Yahíma said. With a sly wink to Crowley, she also said, "I'm actually five hundred years old."

Yaureibo jumped in at this point. "Oh yes, we're all much older than you think. No children who can't drink alcohol here." Ameyro nodded.

(Crowley and Aziraphale, by the way, were not particularly worried about what would come of this conversation. Crowley, because part of his demonic duties was encouraging rule-breaking and he -- and only he -- considered himself a patron saint of underage drinking, and Aziraphale because he remembered that Crowley had already replaced the alcohol on the ship with water.)

“Really,” said Ponz, looking with wonder and a little undisguised greed at the uncorked bottle of wine in his hand. "Where is this Fountain Of Youth, you say?"

"Oh," Yaureibo said, gesturing vaguely. "It's somewhere in that forest over there."

“Exactly,” Ameyro jumped in, “Right over there, in the thickest, viny-est part of the jungle.” He smirked. “It’s meant as a challenge, and only the worthy may drink from the fountain.”

Yahíma said "It would be a quest worthy of a noble man like you," while thinking: My mom will be so proud of me for getting rid of you. 

They set off along the beach to “investigate an alternate route to the fountain," which mostly entailed sunning themselves on the sand, and sending Yaureibo and Ameyro to collect plums, because Aziraphale and Crowley both encouraged young love, and Yahíma just knew they were bad at it and wanted to make fun of them.

Meanwhile, Ponz and his troupe of armored men were trouping through the hot, humid, forests and swamps of Florida.

* * *

Casiguaya thought that with any luck, that man would trip and fall into a swamp before his rampant superiority complex became a problem for them. 

Ponz was mostly thinking about eternal life, which meant that in the next few weeks, he'd be daydreaming very hard and would, in fact, trip and fall into many swamps. Unfortunately, as our modern readers know, none of these managed to kill him; but that is a terrible story, and better left for another day. Fortunately, the idea that the Taino were all wiped out by the Spanish is a myth created by the Spanish -- many of the people escaped to mainlands and lived on through mixed descendants, and a few especially savvy Taino married white colonizers and retained some positions of power. It goes without saying that Yahíma found herself a white husband she promptly forgot about, and followed in her mother's footsteps to rule the island. 

Yaureibo and Ameyro moved together into their own house, which white historians would call an "expression of brotherhood and platonic ties" for years to come. They were both still bad at gathering oysters.

You know what happened with Ponz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some bits of this fic are historically accurate and some totally aren't. It's a toss-up as to which is which. It is true that the Fountain of Youth isn't originally why Ponce de Leon went to Florida or even a large part of his expedition and is most likely a smear campaign done by some guy several decades afterward. Either way, the man massacred tons of indigenous people, cut off their hands, and sentenced them to labor camps, so don't feel too bad for him.
> 
> Research:  
The Tainos: Rise & Decline of the People who Greeted Columbus by Irving Rouse  
https://www.history.com/news/the-myth-of-ponce-de-leon-and-the-fountain-of-youth
> 
> Another note! American history is a wide and varied tapestry, and a lot of it is really, really tragic and horrible. While it's important to know that history, and there will almost always be further reading/research in the ending notes, we're going to focus on the stupid side stories of history, stuff that almost never gets featured because it's just, well, weird. Fun is also important.


	2. Interlude: Angels (and Demons) in America

Finding themselves alone on the beach -- Yahíma, Yaureibo, and Ameyro had arrived safely home to their families, and Ponce had wandered farther into the forest, still muttering about a magical fountain -- Crowley and Aziraphale (after a brief, but intense, round of bickering) decided upon going swimming. The swimming came to a swift and painful end when Aziraphale was bitten on the pinky toe by a particularly aggressive lobster with a point to make; but fortunately for them, while he was dressing, Crowley noticed a flask of rum stashed in his boot that he had stolen from Queen Joanna of Castile's favored handmaiden in the course of a rather bumbling seduction.

Being an enterprising demon, he seized upon the opportunity to cause a little temptation. He picked two coconuts off a nearby tree, cracked them in two, and mixed the milk with a bit of rum from the flask. Aziraphale, beginning to catch on, miracled some seawater into ice and topped it with an elegant slice of pineapple. They called it the Piña Colada. A drink to inspire obnoxious elevator music for centuries to come (not that Crowley could have known that, of course; but if he had, he would have taken credit.) He put a little tartan-patterned umbrella in Aziraphale's coconut, much to the angel's delight.

Crowley promptly spilled his Pina Colada all over himself when the Divine Winds of Heaven began to swirl the sands into the form of the Archangel Gabriel. While a very impressive sand sculpture, it would be outshone in about 503 years by a Moscowite at Revere Beach, Massachusetts. Nevertheless, it was sufficiently awe-inspiring enough for Aziraphale to mutter "Oh shit," and hide himself behind a palm tree. Crowley took the quicker, more thematic route, and buried himself in the sand.

"Principality Aziraphale," the sculpture thundered, spitting out small sand bits as he went. "What are you doing here?"

Aziraphale stayed quiet.

"Principality Aziraphale," Gabriel continued to thunder, "I can see you behind that palm tree."

The Divine Winds rushed back in, whipping the palm tree to one side.

"Oh, haha," Aziraphale weakly laughed. "Didn't see you there, sir."

“You are sorely needed in England; Henry VIII is on the throne.”

"Oh, right, he's a big deal, isn't he!" Aziraphale said, his voice getting noticeably higher. Crowley coughed out a small laugh and some sand. 

"Instrumental to the fight against Hell," Gabriel agreed. Thunderously.

"Well, that seems like --"

"So instrumental," Gabriel steamrolled, "That we can't let just anyone be on the case. Especially not someone with a track record for… disobedience."

"Yes, of… course?”

“In fact,” Gabriel muttered, with a sound like the boom of a thousand storm clouds, “The whole operation might go off easier without that certain  _ someone _ in it.” He turned to Aziraphale. "And we could use just anyone to hold down the New World, especially if it means Hell doesn't get it."

Aziraphale caught on. "Oh yes, there's already some hints of demonic presence here.” He waved the Pina Colada, still in his hand, as a gesture of example. “You could use someone on the front lines of this fight!"

"Well, we're not putting  _ you _ on the front lines of anything. But you can hold down this backwater, right? Actually, I don’t care. You are hereby named Aziraphale, principality of the land of America, blah blah blah, bye." 

Gabriel then unceremoniously dissolved.

_ MEANWHILE _ :

Crowley had initially resolved to (quietly) snark about Aziraphale's spot of trouble, but he was quickly distracted by a rather persistent bug that was quite insistent on sucking his blood. This was a problem, as he'd had the same body for a while, and a little sulfurous demonic essence had gotten its way into his bodily fluids at some point in the 13th century. Of course, that would be more than devastating to the local ecology, and could possibly start yet another plague by accident. He decided to start slapping at it.

"Quit that," a voice like a thousand buzzing flies rang through Crowley's head.

"Oh, fuck, my head," Crowley said.

"Shut up," Beelzebub said, "We've heard Heaven’s sending a representative to the Americas."

They were both quiet for a few seconds, long enough to hear Gabriel and Aziraphale's muffled conversation.

“Yes, I'm hearing,” Crowley said.

"And I was thinking," Beelzebub continued, ignoring him, "since you seem to enjoy bunking off to the New World so much, perhaps you could stay here for, say, the next five hundred years?  We'll bring you back over, of course, when the whole antichrist, hell on earth, apocalypse bit is starting."

"Wait, but what about that whole Henry VIII thing? You need to bring me back, my apartment lease isn't up yet!"

Beezlebub rubbed their fly hands together. "Now it is.”

“Shit,” Crowley said. "Well, isn't there still that whole, six wives, bigamy, Henry splitting the church deal that everyone's preparing for? You'll need all hands on deck, you know. Who’s going to finish off Jane Seymour?"

"Project’s canceled, we figured out she’s going to die anyway. Besides, you won't be needing to worry about that for a while," Beelzebub said. “There's loads more to be done here! In Europe, we'll be riding off the Spanish Inquisition for at least another few decades, but here, we can try something new! I know what your imagination’s capable of, Crawly. Put it to use for once."

With that thought, Beelzebub gave him a final, spiteful bite and flew away.

"Oh well, buzz off then," Crowley spluttered a little. 

Aziraphale's conversation had similarly ended, and Crowley could hear him walking over to the suspicious ring-shaped, blackened patch of sand, still smoldering angrily, that tended to show up with Crowley's more flashy acts.

"Alright down there?" He asked. Crowley parted the sand and heaved himself out, miserably picking at the grains that had gotten in his hair.

"Not really," he muttered. "It seems we're both stuck here for the foreseeable future."

"Well," Aziraphale said, “Not the worst thing in the world. It could be like a vacation! Pina Coladas every day!" With a gentle wave, he miracled Crowley’s hair back to normal.

Crowley turned his back to the sea and faced the wide expanse of swampland and jungle. A new continent, filled with innumerable mysteries, innumerable places, innumerable lives. Who knew what the future would hold?

"It will certainly be something."


End file.
